If you can't get a job, that's about the quickest, easiest way to get healthcare in the U.S. The healthcare isn't great in jails and prisons, but it beats the hell out of nothing.

For those of you fortunate enough to live in developed countries, let me break down the U.S. system for you. Here are the only ways to get healthcare in the U.S.:

1) Go to prison or jail. Not the best care, but beats nothing2) Be real poor. This will usually qualify you for Medicaid--which sucks, but is also better than nothing.3) Be a child. There are usually programs for providing healthcare for kids.4) Be over 65. This will qualify you for Medicare--which isn't the best by a longshot (many doctors won't accept it) but it's a lot better than Medicaid5) Get a job with benefits. This means a full-time job (working as a cashier at Walmart won't cut it). Better come armed with a college degree. Quality is all over the map.6) Join the military. Very good healthcare. But this could involve getting shot at.7) Become a Congressman of other high-ranking government official. Best fucking care you can get. Expect gold-plated bedpans for yourself and your family, even as you rail against government-supported healthcare for everyone else.

Of course, you can also elect to pay for it yourself. But, if you have ever seen what even basic healthcare costs in the U.S., you will realize this is impractical for anyone who isn't Bill Gates. A single emergency room visit could easily bankrupt even a moderately well-off individual. And don't even THINK about having surgery unless you've got a mansion to mortgage.

No always. Take a look at California's prison healthcare issues [newscientist.com]. This guy will probably be charged by the state (instead of federal) and the state may even deal with him as a non-violent offender who gets house arrest (and has to pay for his own monitoring). The DA & prosecutor aren't stupid - they'll want to discourage this type of activity.

There was probably more evidence to gather regarding the kiddy porn case. They'd have to carefully track down everything relating to the case. I'd assume that the defendant was pleading "not guilty", which will stretch out the time required. There's a chance of unidentified victims, so they'd have to follow down every lead to make sure the case was tried appropriately.

This case is a lot simpler. He *wants* to go to jail, so he'll plead guilty. The evidence will consist of

I don't think so. He's already in jail. The key issue is, he wants to stay in jail, so he'll plead not guilty, forcing them to schedule him for trial. Then he'll use every method he can to delay the trial, and to blow it up as large as possible, forcing it out of the small initial slot in the judge's calender. When they offer him a plea (and they will), he'll just make it clear that the plea needs to include jail time of the desired length, otherwise, it'll be

These are sops; ex-cons are flat-out unemployable. Heck, even if you're *not* a con it's tough to find a job for most people. But if you are... you're done. You're never, ever going to re-integrate with society unless you have resources of your own that make getting a job unnecessary.

The US is in the active process of creating a permanently unemployable underclass, consumed by rage and resentment, with a constantly increasing pool of criminal skills. The next "war" will be against this self-inflicted injury to society, and you can bet your last red cent it will consume the tattered rags of liberty remaining to non-felons today... felons are just a little ahead of the curve.

Are you [bad word] kidding me? In the process of creating a permanently unemployable underclass? As in present progressive tense? No, you should use the past tense. Try "have created" instead.

The conservatives and libertarians threw much of our rights under the bus in order to elect "tough on crime" candidates. Not only did this undermine our constitutional rights and create a giant prison industry that rivals the military industrial complex (why didn't anyone hold their feet to the fire for massively expanding government while campaigning as the "small government" crowd?), but creating a permanently unemployable underclass was the whole [bad word] point.

Conservative/libertarian economic philosophy has been undermining the middle class since the days of Reagan. One of the ways conservatives and libertarians have been able to mask this fact was by transferring large numbers of the working poor into prison, thus reducing job-seeking competition for people falling from the middle class into the upper reaches of the working poor. Without this part of the strategy, those riots you see in Wisconsin, Michigan and other places would have started happening a long time ago.

Releasing the sex offenders in most states is the cruelest punishment of all. Most of those guys can't even legally live almost anywhere in the state. Saw a story [cnn.com] a while back about a group of them who had took to living under a bridge because they couldn't legally rent any apartment in their city. Not much of a chance for those who legitimately want to go straight and lead a crime-free life. The state is basically guaranteeing that its released criminals will have to turn to crime, just to survive. If that's all that awaits them, the state shouldn't be releasing them (it's cruel to the prisoners and endangers the public).

This is primarily because the sex offender laws are almost uniformly ridiculous, basically a legislative expression of hysteria on the part of the media and those who drink the media kool-aid, and malfeasance and oath-breaking on the part of legislators.

It seems like almost any law named after a child is going to be over-arching, sweeping, and amazingly punitive. See: Megan's Law, the Jacob Wetterling Act, the Adam Walsh Act.

I always found it a bit silly that we take better care of our criminals than we do of our homeless. Sure, some homeless refuse help and just want to get their next fix, but they are far from the majority. Those are just the ones that you will see most often due to their drug dependency.

A lot of the homeless people that you would assume are drug addicts are actually schizophrenic or have other debilitating mental issues. They also don't have access to health care. Some might also be drug addicts as well as crazy, as self medicating is common (for instance schizophrenics tend to smoke a lot as the nicotine helps them keep it together a little).

breaking a house arrest to get into a real prison is.. well, fuck, it's much easier than robbing a bank of 1$. and doing something to get more time in the prison is easy too, like, getting drugs and then getting caught for them. for a good prison time he should have probably done a finance crime of federal proportions? I guess just showing up naked at the town house wouldn't cut it nowadays..

Here's what he needs to do: when he's at his sentencing hearing, and they sentence him to house arrest, he needs to grab a pen, go over to the DA/prosecuting attorney, and stab him with it. Take out his eyes if possible (he's a lawyer, he deserves it). Then put his hands up and say "send me to prison!"

There's no way they can avoid sending him to prison after brutally maiming a lawyer (since hurting a lawyer gets you the same penalty as hurting a human, even though lawyers aren't human).

I'm sorry that it's so tough for you guys in the US. Here in the UK, Cameron (like Reagan's mini-me Thatcher and various oddly-admired gentlemen all the way back to half-American Churchill) is trying his best to turn us into the 51st state.

But it turns out that quite a lot of British people love the NHS. And, imperfect as all human endeavours will be, so do I. And I don't just love it in principle - I, like almost everyone in the UK, have experienced and benefitted from it.

(I also have experienced US healthcare. Oh dear. The US does a few things very right - why must it get some things so wrong?)

The problem is the media no longer calls out BS. So when some gets yup and goes on about the cost of health care, invents thing that are not in the health care bill, goes out of there way to scare seniors, no major agency calls there bullshit.

To not have federal level health care is the most stupid and expensive way to have healthcare.

I'm not sure I understand why the federal government is more efficient and/or intelligent than any other method... What makes the federal government more capable/cheaper/efficient than the ability for providers to compete and offer their insurance to anyone across the country instead of being limited by state?

Free markets will work only when the consumer makes rational informed choices. It would work if everyone is paying for their own healthcare with their own money. Everyone thinks "this treatment costs X and the benefit is Y, do I want it?". This will drive down the cost and give you all the benefits of competitive marketplace.

What we have instead is NOT even, "I pay a fixed amount to some health insurance company. Then I get to the all-you-can-eat buffet of healthcare". First problem, everyone feels entitl

There are several reasons... and that's ignoring the fact that state run healthcare, everywhere else in the world, has proven more effective, more universal, and about half the cost of the US system today.

The first big problem is profit motive. A government organization filled with government workers (eg, like Congress, the Senate, the Military, etc) is not expected to turn a profit. And no multi-million dollar CEO salaries. So, as long as it's well run (yes, that's an argument, but it applies equally to pr

I have lived in the UK (I'm British) and in the US. If you think the poorest American (or even a modestly paid American, say one working in retail for minimum wage) has anything *like* the quality of healthcare that is available to *everyone* in the UK then you are delusional.

In no small part, American health care is too expensive because of how it's paid for. Estimates consistently show about 30% of all health care spending goes into the billing system. I've heard horror stories about how the average doctor may have to deal with over 100 different insurance companies each of which has it's own long forms that need to be filled out exactly correctly. Most apparently have staff who's only job is filling out that billing paperwork so the doctor actually gets paid and that many

Paying for yourself not practical? I don't smoke and I'm not overweight, and I pay $150/mo for full coverage. If I stay in the hospital, I'm never on the hook for more than $1500; my insurance pays the rest. Granted I am single and young, but I'm not exactly going bankrupt here. I'm sure if you have a large family or are otherwise unhealthy it can be a a huge burden, but if you can't afford that then it pays to not have kids and just take care of yourself.

I'm guessing that's also what he pays after his company, or school, or parents, pay the rest.

Either that, or it's not nearly as comprehensive as he thinks.

Or he lives in a state where there's a good state plan available. (There's a few states doing this now.)

Things are getting better, though. I've been searching to get a plan myself, and have found a couple of decent options in the $300-$400 range. Which is a vast improvement over last time I looked, a few years ago, when the same plans were $1000-$

The single largest cause of bankruptcy in the USA? Medical expenses incurred by people who were "fully covered". That's about half of all bankruptcies.

And chances are, you'll never know if you're fully covered or not. And even if you are, you may have some hours of taking at your insurance company to ensure they agree. There seems to be a standard policy at most insurance companies to just randomly reject claims, even those they know are covered.

Incidently... thanks to big fat Chris Christie (Jersey governor), my wife's insurance, formerly a benefit (teachers have typically had great benefits and lousy pay... as an engineer working at startups for the last few years, I'm usually dealing with good pay and lousy benefits), may cost as much as $6,000 this next year, to cover our family of four. As with many of the Republican governors, Christie has been working hard to effectively increase taxes on teachers, firemen, police, and other public employees, so he can afford the tax breaks previously given to the richest in the state.

Of course, what he's effectively done is killed an untold number of small businesses. It's an on-going thing... we lost a couple locally already this year (Woodstown/Pilesgrove), even a liquor store. Those are supposed to do well in bad economies...

The rich are already the richest (compared to the average) they've been since before the great depression -- additional income does nothing. Same with businesses -- additional income does absolutely nothing to grow a business. Additional demand for a product or service is the thing that grows a business. And these new sideways taxes have just ensured that a big chunk of the New Jersey middle class will have thousands less to spend this year and next.

That's important to understand -- the poor and the middle class spend all of their income; the rich don't. So additional lower end income boosts an economy, additional higher end income alone does nothing to the local economy. Boosting everyone's income boosts the economy, but only for a very short time.. things do ultimately stabilize around supply and demand... the price of things in short supply go up, and eventually, no one sees that income boost any longer. But I digress...

Breaking news. You are more likely to get sick and die as you get older. More at 11.

And yet, that is precisely the problem that is not fixed with a voluntary insurance system. By the time you're old enough to need health care, you're not productive enough to pay for it any more. Thus the need for an insurance mandate or tax. It really is that simple.

FWIW, approximately the same amount of money pays for full private coverage in Germany. (Most people pay far less, unemployed people pay nothing.) Visits to the doctor, prescription meds, glasses, hospital stays and surgery are basically all covered 100%. If you don't need the coverage for a full quarter, a part of the fees is returned.

For those of you who don't know what "full private coverage" means (eg everyone not from germany):
* Single or double room if you are in hospital (your choice)
* free choice of clinic
* treatment by the chief physician
* full dental care
* glasses, contact lenses
* alternative medication and treatment (eg acupuncture)
* massage and physiotherapie
* psychotherapy
All paid for. You usally get the best your hospital / doctor has to offer.

By the person themselves - that's what he was saying. For the cost of the shitty insurance in the USA, the same money in Germany pays for coverage that costs thousands and thousands more in the US, and you get it partially refunded every quarter if you don;t use it.

That's because *everyone pays into the same pot so the cost goes down for everyone*. This is what the anti-universal healthcare people seem to miss (or deliberately ignore).

About six years ago I developed a kidney stone that refused to pass. I was right out of college, had just lost my health coverage and did not have a job with insurance. The pain was chronic and possibly dangerous (I won't go into the details but also fairly rare). Finally I went to my local hospital and paid out of pocket. After four or five visits along with a CT scan and a trip to the emergency room (and about six hundred dollars in hospital bills) they finally told me that I needed lithotripsy to destroy the stone. Because I had no insurance the cost of them blasting the stone in an out patient operation (basically going into the hospital that morning and being kicked to the curb by lunch) was roughly 8000 dollars.
Instead I flew to Germany where a weeks stay in the hospital and two lithotripsy operations (because the stone did not break up the first time) along with x-rays, ultrasounds and other tests cost me 3000 dollars. Add in a plane ticket that cost about 600 and I paid less then half to fly across the world to get the operation done then I would have paid here in the states (even worse, if I had to have two operations in the states the total would have been 16,000, whereas the German doctors only charged me a few hundred more for a few more days in the hospital).
I had grown up hearing all my life about the horrors of socialized medicine. About long waits and incompetent care. What I experienced was the opposite. I had longer waits in US hospitals (including a two hour wait for a CT scan, I never waited more then half an hour for anything in Germany). What shocked me more was how brazenly I was treated by the doctors here in the US, who seemed almost uninterested in what I had to say and were more interested in getting me out of their office. I also had the unfortunate experience in the US during this time of having one of my samples switched with someone else's and had the doctor (erroneously) call me into the office to tell me I had Hepatitis C. I wasn't amused.

$1500 is a lot when you're out of work. And more to the point, how often can that 1500 re-occur? Admittedly I'm in canada so we don't treat people like they'll have to pay out of pocket. But my best friend at 29 had cancer. He was admitted, sent home, re-admitted to hospital several times in a week, and 3 times in one day. It wasn't even that the hospital was trying to be rid of him, he just had a lot of different parts of his body failing in different ways and they'd solve one problem, send him home (because the feeling is you recover better at home) and 2 days later something else would go wrong.

He's sorted out health wise now. But that's beside the point. If you end up in hospital multiple times in a month, how often will your insurance re-bill you.

What does "full coverage" mean? Prescription drugs? Do you have a co-pay? If you have a deductible of 1500 in hospital care (or something like that) it's certainly not 'full'. What if you go to a hospital in a different city than where you live? Does your insurance company approve (or not) of places you can go? Also, under what conditions can they drop your coverage. That was the trick with my friend, as he learned through friends in various support groups. In the US the first time you get cancer you're probably covered by insurance. But the moment they think you're cured for 3 months they drop your ass like a rock, and no one else will touch you with a 100 metre, I'm sorry, foot, pole, and then you're in deep shit.

Covering everyone seems to work pretty well everywhere else. Don't see why it wouldn't work in the US. Ever been a single 28 year old man living alone with a job, gotten cancer, twice, and in while you were on disability had your employer shut down (this was a 200+ employee outfit too)? Ya, those bums have no right to healthcare, you can work while you're on chemo, just keep a barf bag in your office. Or maybe you should be using that fat 900 dollar a month disability/unemployment cheque on eharmony to

One thing that people often forget is that you can get very individualized plans, and these can cut the costs dramatically.

Instead of general health insurance, ask for catastrophic health insurance. As in: You pay out of pocket for all regular doctor visits and medication. Get insurance for things like "I cracked my head open and my brain is exposed." Telling doctors that you are paying in cash, out of pocket, will often reduce your costs as well.

While I agree with everything you said I will say that I am currently self employed and paying for my own health insurance, my monthly premiums are just over 600 per month (I'm 45 and in pretty good health). While routine visits are paid for I still have a $30 co-pay for every doctor visit and usually a $25 co-pay for prescriptions (although I have paid higher for more costly medication). Anything other than routine requires pre-authorization from the insurance company and is more times than not declined with no explanation the first or even second time my doctor requests it (such as physical therapy for a knee). Also, every year my premiums increase by 10-15 percent and my premiums are almost to the point where I will NOT be able to afford that monthly cost.

A lot of people forget about that. What's worse is that for somebody in their 40s, you've got it easy, a lot of people can't get insurance at all no matter how much money they have. I would have been in that position were it not for my state having a pool for anybody that can pay, regardless of health condition. It's much more expensive than the other options, but at least it's there for those that can afford it.

my monthly premiums are just over 600 per month (I'm 45 and in pretty good health)

Have you considered catastrophic health insurance [howstuffworks.com]? Catastrohpic health insurance has a really high deductible, like around $6000. Then most of your run-of-the-mill health care is just paid out-of-pocket, but if you end up needing a $100k operation, you don't break the bank. It's significantly cheaper, and (I think) is probably a better way to go if you're reasonably healthy.

There's another option you're missing.8) Make enough money to buy an individual insurance plan on your own. It's extremely expensive, and will probably be a big portion of your income unless you're pretty well-off, but people do it.

Otherwise good list, although I would quibble with 7... pretty much all full-time government workers get pretty damn good health care plans, not just the high ranking ones.

There's another option you're missing.
8) Make enough money to buy an individual insurance plan on your own. It's extremely expensive, and will probably be a big portion of your income unless you're pretty well-off, but people do it.

40 year old male, Kaiser - $8k deductible - 80% coverage afterwards = $148/month. It goes up to $400/month for no deductible, but a doctor visit is only about $150 out of pocket, so I don't see why people buy cadillac plans unless they're very frequently sick.

I don't really see other countries with universal care as "developed" in contrast to the US. Sure, they provide care to more people, and in the short term, things look great. But the reality is that none of these nations handle the real issue that is straight in the face of the US, rising healthcare costs. Universal care in other countries doesn't fix this. They just make someone else pay for it. In Japan, over 50% of the hospitals operate in the red. In Germany, doctors are forced to take substantially low

I don't really see other countries with universal care as "developed" in contrast to the US. Sure, they provide care to more people, and in the short term, things look great. But the reality is that none of these nations handle the real issue that is straight in the face of the US, rising healthcare costs. Universal care in other countries doesn't fix this. They just make someone else pay for it. In Japan, over 50% of the hospitals operate in the red. In Germany, doctors are forced to take substantially lower wages than in comparative countries, which has led to a number of protests consisting of tens of thousands of doctors and contributed to Germany's immigration deficit.

The US system sucks, but it's a lot easier to fix than in these other nations.

I don't agree. The types of problems that places like the EU countries and Canada are experiencing for example in their health care systems are ones of supply issues (wait times for example), payment formulas (hospital and physician payments for example), and coverage policy debates (what should be covered? IVF, sex changes, experimental, etc.) While these are significant issues, fundamentally the systems are working to provide reasonable care to the majority of the population without undue hardship on the individual or the society as a whole. Additionally, the potential changes to the existing systems to address current and future shortcomings are not mired in political difficulties in the way the politicization of healthcare in the US has made it virtually impossible to craft any significant reforms. In contrast to pretty much the rest of the "developed" world, the US is spending huge amounts on a per-capita basis, with large fractions of the population getting inadequate care at a very high cost to the individual and a very high cost to the economy. It is a very real challenge for a US company to provide health coverage to its workforce while still being competitive with a non-US company operating in a country with a more workable health-care system.

Not that I disagree with all of redemtionboy's points. Greater competition, removal of conflicts of interest, better consumer knowledge, and all sorts of other tweaks could result in huge increases in efficiencies to the whole health care system. Fundamentally however I feel that healthcare is probably not something I want to be completely "market-driven" - particularly since I find it hard to believe that the market will inevitably be manipulated to the determent of the patient/customer.

Poor women go into ER to complain about 'Chest pains' and then mention they might be pregnant to gt a pregnancy kit. So they get 2000 in tests when all they really needed was a 15 dollar pregnancy kit.

People go to ER to get treated for something that would have been substantial cheaper if they had access to a doctor to get treated right away instead of having to wait for an emergency.

Dental issues are seldom considered an emergency.. until it's so infected that have to go to the ER because the infection is spreading to the brain.

People get minimum they needed to get to treat the emergency, not the underling problem, so they come back every time a chronic problem becomes and emergency.

And so on..

We do pay for this, with higher Dr. and hospital costs, higher insurance rates.

This doesn't even get into how not having UHC strangles many small and growing business.Get to a point where you need senior people? you will need to provide health care for those employees. This costs business a lot of money. If we all paid with taxes, then there would be less of a burden an small business.

UHC lowers the cost of health. The market, by it's very nature, will not help people. There is NO competing for 50% of the population. given a free market, they have no choice.

You're solution leads to great and cheep healthcare for the most well off people only, because insurance is about offsetting costs. SO it's in the business best interest to insure you until you leave the optimal area. so if your re 18-30, and make 150K+ a year, the 'free market' will be happy to help you.

Sorry, but a lot of developed countries pay a lot less for their universal health care then the USA, per capita. Sure it means that medical specialists might earn a little less. They're not going to earn millions, most people in the semi-public sector are limited to the amount the Prime Minister earns, which is about 250,000 euro. Still pretty decent in my view.

The Dutch government has defined a "standard healthcare package", which all insurance companies must cover for a fixed amount (just over 1000 euro a year). They can compete on service and extra options. They also can't refuse you the standard package, so anyone can get this basic set of healthcare and it's mandatory to be insured. Only people like the homeless aren't insured, jobless people and those on minimum wages are helped by the government to pay for their insurance.And for what's covered: Currently the discussion is if support for giving up smoking should be covered. That should give you an idea.There's optional extra packages for things like modifications in the home, electric wheelchairs, TV and newspapers at your bedside in the hospital.

We also struggle with rising costs for medical care, but as you can see, we're in a much better place than the USA which pays about twice as much.

Because he's a conservative who's never been unemployed, broke, and sick. He thinks that all we need is a tax-free savings account to save our healthcare system. He thinks there is an unemployed cancer patient sitting out there who would be just fine--if only he could pay for his own healthcare without a small tax on his savings. All we need is for the government to get out of the way; and all the poor, unemployed, underemployed, etc, would finally have the freedom to pay for their own healthcare with the millions of $ that are going to magically appear out of nowhere once we cut taxes on the rich and corporations.

In other words, because he's an deluded ideologue with no connection to reality.

But, if you have ever seen what even basic healthcare costs in the U.S., you will realize this is impractical for anyone who isn't Bill Gates

This is not always so.

My wife and I have been self employed for years and both pay for our own health care. I now work for a Fortune 500 company, and we still stay with our individual plans because they are cheaper. Here is the key difference: Companies provide high-end health care, while individual care has more gradations. My employer's healthcare has a $100 deductible, a low co-pay, and pays for every random doctor visit, dental appointment, or band-aid. My individual coverage has $1000 deductible bu

It depends on the state.
Being white has nothing to do with it - it's not a factor. But many (possibly most? Maybe all, I haven't investigated most states) have different programs available for women, including pre-natal, post-natal, and breast cancer funds, much of which can be stretched to cover other things. If you go in for one thing, treatment may, in some circumstances, be extended to everything that could affect it. It's not always easy, and it's not the greatest, but it is, as the original post

Yet, in my experience as a white, middle class college educated male, many things are easier for me, than they are for my friends from similar backgrounds who are of a different sex, a person of color, or someone who doesn't conform to heteronormative standards.

In my experience, when the system fails, many rather insulated white folks assume its reverse racism, when in actuality, it's because the system sucks for everyone. However they have two very flawed assumptions.

Seems we are in good company. Lots of people have observed the same thing. What we need is a kind of group where we can share information and maybe even protest what is going on. It should be exclusive to white males. We can call it some sort of klan.

And while we're at it, let's publish a magazine to empower the white male... let's call it "White Power." If that's disagreeable, let's go with "Ivory."

We should then begin to call ourselves a discriminated minority (which, by now we are) and campaign for

So, you can get health insurance for your family for 10,000 to 15,000 per year, and not have to pay much else.

Tell me, do you actually consider your words before you start typing away? Do you have any idea how much money that is to the average family in the U.S.? The average household income in the U.S. is $31,000. And that's before taxes, rent, food, etc. Do you really think someone making $31K a year can afford $10K-$15 just for health insurance?

The pertinent number would be how many people live in poverty but do not qualify for government healthcare. The pertinent number would be how many people would become impoverished should they take on one of these "reasonable" health plans. The pertinent number would be how many people would become bankrupt should their "reasonable" healthcare coverage fall short after suffering catastrophic illness/injury.

You are either myopic or a cold-hearted, selfish bastard who'd sooner step on everyone else's back if

The median household income in the US is $44k. The mean household income in the US is $60k. Where did you get $31k?

I'm also not sure where the other poster got $15k for health insurance after saying an HSA would be $4k. It might get to $10k or $11k if you had to pay the maximum out of pocket expense every single year but that seems pretty unlikely for most people.

Assumption of privileged background. I stopped reading here and skipped to the last paragraph, as it's clear you don't live in the real world. My assumption was confirmed:

Everyone I know has health care they're happy with

In the real world, many people don't have a "parents policy" to be on and people can have serious health conditions from a young age which preclude most insurance options or eventually drive their premiums up to unaffordability.

(And I say this as someone who was born into a family with private healthcare in a country where most people don'

Think of food, housing, clothes, everything you need to live. Don't you have to pay for those?

Actually, we have plenty of programs to provide those as well if you cannot afford them.

Food? Food Stamps and WIC vouchers

Housing? Section 8 is specifically designed to assist low income housing. There's also those stimulus housing tax credits they offered when people couldn't afford their mortgages anymore (some had to pay back, some did not).

Clothes? Plenty of clothing drives for that (more apparent in regions with harsher winters). Government either pitches in by sponsoring, or offering organi

In fact, the ONLY country in the world who spends more on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than the US is Timor-Leste at 16%. Most of the so-called 'socialist' medical plans are MUCH MUCH cheaper than the US and provide FAR better results. In fact, Every. Single. Country. who has a longer life expectancy than the US has a nationalized healthcare system that costs much less than ours. Why the HELL aren't the Dems hammering on this point?

Posted by a somewhat bitter US citizen who knows the answer but still doesn't like it.:-(

"Campaign contributions" by insurance companies. That's the thing, in order to get universal healthcare, we need to enforce ethics rules that would eliminate the corruption in Congress and the Senate. In order to do so, we would need a majority of the Congress and Senate to vote for them...

Every. Single. Country. who has a longer life expectancy than the US has a nationalized healthcare system that costs much less than ours. Why the HELL aren't the Dems hammering on this point?

Probably because it'll get worse before it gets better. Our system works because it's one system covering everyone, period. The US finally decided to take up one of the good sides - to cover everyone - but ignored the most important part, nobody's playing hot potato with the sick patients. It's not a game to get rid of the unprofitable insurance holders or deny or delay their claims. Patients with relatively small issues get evicted and so grow to having serious conditions because they lack treatment. In short, treatment is given on very different reasons than what would be medically and socioeconomically efficient. Right now the US is picking up burning hot potatoes and it'll be a wild shuffle not be the one stuck with them.

If the US was to get anywhere, like really get anywhere, they would have to nationalize basic healthcare, put all the medical insurance companies out of business - or at least into the much smaller, private extra care market that covers maybe 5% of the market. And that won't happen, the public support isn't there. Sadly I think the republicans got this one right where they want it, they had to let it happen but made it happen in a way that will fail spectacularly and so make sure the US doesn't try it again. That would at least be my prediction of where this is going as soon as the Republicans take over in 2012, unless there's been a major improvement in the economy.

The US unemployment figures are lying badly. What you should be looking is the employment-population ratio. In normal years it should be 62-63%, in December 2009 it hit a low of 58.2% of the population was employed, last month 58.4% in other words the US hasn't recovered at all. I don't think any president could manage to sit through that. And after they take over, the health reform is getting buried. Or turned into an even worse abomination to really drive the point home.

Yup. I expected the Republicans to be idiots about healthcare. After all, they're well paid by the insurance companies, they're rich (and so, they already can afford it), and they can pull out the "don't trust the government" thing when it suits them. And ignore the terrible effect of employer-paid healthcare on every US business that's not an insurance company.

But it was the Dems who caved on single payer this time around, and they did that even before they got to the table with the Republicans. Both sides

A minute on google can't find a specific number, but taking the total NHS spending bill and dividing by the population of the UK it comes out at ~£800 per person per year (about $1300). So $110 per month for an average person. Someone higher in the thread said that as a healthy young low-risk individual their insurance was tiny, only $150 per month, and several older higher-risk people said they were lucky to be that low -- so going by these napkin-numbers, we in the UK have it pretty good.

In Finland the same number would be 1254€ / person / year. (1806.35$, 1113.45 GPB). Basically everything is free for that sum, and you can always go to private health care services too as much as you wish (and get little compensation from the state too). It's also possible to insure yourself against all health care expenses, but that's something extra (practically all insurance companies offer some kind of version of it).

It's a really sad story and statement about healthcare but I really don't see how this is Slashdot material in any way. The concept of committing a crime so that you can get some free meals, bed, etc. is incredibly old.

Option 1: Pay $260 / month for a $1,000 deductible plan, and hope that I don't have to spend the $1,000 before health insurance kicks in the rest.

Option 2: Rob a bank. Get free health care!

Except, I wouldn't ask for $1 like this guy. The teller would probably just laugh and tell me to get lost. I'd demand $50,000. That way, if I manage to evade the police, at least I can afford health care for one year before I would need to rob the bank again!

Did the police return the $1 to the bank? Or did one of them pocket the dollar for his snack later that day?
Better yet, do you think the bank is going to file an insurance claim? After all, they lost some unknown amount of business during the robbery, the insurance should cover that vague amount.

I think there was this short story by O' Henry, written around 1900 about someone breaking shop windows to go to jail for the winter every year.
The Cop and the Anthem. http://www.classicreader.com/book/1757/1/ [classicreader.com]

It is sad that basic human greed has put this man in this kind of situation. According to the article, he has a growth in his chest and two ruptured disks. In some ways, this was an innovative thing to do but it is a shame that wanting to live cost him his freedom. I had often thought of doing the same thing if forced into that kind of situation. The only mistake this man made was not taking enough money (he only stole $1) to keep him in prison long enough for treatment. The judge may not even sentence

meanwhile, evil socialist countries like denmark, uk: they live longer than us, and pay less on healthcare, and are just plain happier and less stressed

universal healthcare is just insurance, that's all it is. there is no one who can opt out of healthcare because if you break your arm, we're not going to let you walk around with your arm dangling, we're going to treat you. THAT'S what makes it mandatory: simple human morality. you're going to hold it against your fellow citizens that we want you to be healthy. it's your "choice" not to be treated? or is it your "choice" to be treated AND NOT PAY FOR IT, freeloader? the freeloaders are not the stereotypical welfare queen, the freeloaders are the young "libertarians" who break their arm, go to the hospital, and then avoid the bill because they can't afford it!

why are some americans so fucking deranged on the obvious benefits of universal healthcare, and how "choice" is MORE EXPENSIVE, the REAL freeloading, and less healthy? who don't people understand the obvious?

nope. Americans are suckered by propaganda; its all about emotions and not about facts and results. Just like global warming, for too many citizens its about their personal identity as a conservative or whatever and they can't be what they want/believe they are (and what is best) if they hold opposition positions-- its like the issues were made part of the definition of what they are... and they have been and it has been done under their nose--- instead of having them define their group they wish to belong to they define themselves to fit within the group. Ironic they are also such individualists...

It never ceases to surprise me just how OK Americans are with rape, so long as the person being raped isn't a woman. Perhaps before we start lecturing other nations about human rights abuses, we might want to remember that there is a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and only the most narrow minded of people would consider prison conditions to not be a part of the punishment.

You're ALREADY paying for all those people you are so don't like. Yes, it's true, you pay in form of taxes which cover ER visits that never get paid by poor people (who are often also unhealthy, go figure); you pay in the form of higher insurance premiums so that health care can be profitable (and because the pool of people is much smaller); you pay in the form of your business having less healthy employees; you pay in the form of a more dangerous society, as more people get pushed into crime because they cannot afford to care for themselves even working full time.

The jokes is really on you, because if you'd give up your ideological hatred for those people and for the idea that some social problems can be best tackled collectively through strategic actions by government, you'd end up paying less in taxes to cover Universal Healthcare than you currently pay for private insurance and all the unseen costs of having the terrible system we have today in the US.

I understand your frustration, but you're advocating a position that actually ends up being counter productive to your stated goals.

Because universal heatlhcare or not, he will be treated. Right now, he gets sick and goes to the ER which you pay for indirectly. That's currently how we handle things. We could have been giving him preventative care which usually ends up being cheaper in almost all cases. And you can solve the smoking problem by increasing the taxes on cigarettes, and making the tax money be only or mostly used for funding the treatment of smokers. Have them pay for their own health care that their habit causes (and probab

Now how are your strategic actions by the government going to help me end up paying less in taxes to cover that person's lung cancer?

Because the US is (at least in theory) a civilized country, meaning that the person with lung cancer is going to be covered every time he goes to the ER anyway, as hospitals cannot refuse to give life-saving care. You're almost certainly paying more for the emergency care as they die than you would to give them the care they need to live.

If you are in fact arguing that hospitals should refuse life-saving care on the basis of a lack of insurance, you're a horrible human being.

It must be tough to live your whole life worrying that someone, somewhere is having something good happen that they didn't "deserve". And of course if something bad happens, fuck that person, they obviously did deserve it. got cancer? Fuck you, here's a free bullet, grandma. Go suck some dick in a back alley if you want chemotherapy. Also, we need tort reform so that grandma can't sue the company that told her Asbestos was safe to eat in her breakfast cereal every morning for 30 years even though they had proof it was deadly. I don't want ambulance chasers affecting my 401k.

Fuck you sick people, if you weren't such lazy and immoral people you'd be healthy and rich like me!

I don't want to buy a thirteenth aircraft carrier for a country that already has twelve, especially since the only other nation with even two is Italy, and I don't think it's rational to spend that kind of money just in case we get into a war with them again (Yes, I know we had a bit of a dustup with them seventy years ago, but still, I'm an optimist. For that matter, the UK has a single carrier, and we did fight them in 1812, so maybe the reason we have 11 deployed, 1 reserve and 1 in the oven is in case w